Cowin To Make Another Run At Ban On Partial-birth Abortion

Political Pulse

Florida's abortion wars will go through Lake County next year - again.

State Sen. Anna Cowin, R-Leesburg, said last week that she will try one more time to pass a measure that bans the intact dilation and extraction abortion procedure, or partial-birth abortion to foes.

Cowin passed the bill once before, only to see it vetoed by former Gov. Lawton Chiles in 1997, her first year in Tallahassee.

Legislators overrode that veto. But Cowin's bill was later shot down by a judge because it failed to consider the mother's health.

Cowin drafted yet another bill to ban the procedure last year. But senators in her own party killed it in committee.

``I'm trying to come at it a little differently,'' Cowin said last week.

She declined to go into any specifics but added that she would attack the rarely used procedure as a ``fetus rights'' issue and less on medical grounds.

Cowin wants to outlaw what she deems a gruesome procedure because it's ``infanticide,'' she said.

But women's rights activists say abortion opponents need to take into account what kind of agonizing circumstances lead women to seek the procedure.

``No one goes into that decision lightly,'' said Donna Slutiak, a leader of the Marion/Lake County Chapter of the National Organization for Women.

Slutiak also worries that this ban is just the beginning.

``It opens the door to banning all abortion rights,'' Slutiak said.

Cowin, who opposes abortion even in cases of rape and incest, said she has no plans to go after other abortion procedures when this battle is done.

Copycat: Osceola County residents voted overwhelmingly - 67 percent to 33 percent - this week to keep a penny sales tax in place until the year 2025.

``That's exactly what we're going to try to do here,'' said Lake County Commission Chairman Welton Cadwell.

Lake has its own penny sales tax levy now. But it is due to die in 2002.

The added Lake sales tax was approved by voters in 1987 to pay for a new judicial center and jail. But the cash also has paid for several parks and myriad other projects, including Mount Dora's renovation of Donnelly Park and Leesburg's land purchase for a proposed new library.

Osceola's vote to renew a similar tax bucked a recent trend by taxpayers to turn back extra sales levies. Lake and Orange counties recently axed sales tax measures for schools and roads.

The two big potential snags for Lake penny tax boosters would be if a backlash comes from voters who think the county didn't spend the current 1-cent levy wisely - a gripe that's already been lodged - or if voters think there are no good uses lined up for the sales tax funds.

But Cadwell said that, like Osceola, Lake will have a strong spending blueprint in place for voters on where the future revenues will go.

``The public has got to have confidence in what we're telling them,'' he said.

The county tentatively plans to split the revenues with the cities and school system. Recent rancor on the School Board about where to put schools and how many are needed will have to get settled soon, Cadwell added.

``Hopefully they can work that out before we start moving ahead,'' he said.

New development: Another candidate is inching closer to running for the state House District 25 seat that Rep. Stan Bainter is leaving behind next year.

Bruce Duncan, Lake County economic development director, said a few months back that he was cautiously entertaining the idea.

But in recent weeks, sources said he had been meeting with key local and state Republicans to flesh out a possible run. Duncan confirmed that fact last week.

If he finally opts to run, he would join former School Board member Randy Wiseman and Mount Dora businesswomanBetty Hensinger as official candidates.

Duncan said he has a couple key meetings coming up in the next few weeks, and he should decide in the coming months.

Bainter, a Eustis Republican, has to step aside because of term limits, and his departure is expected to spark a wide open race to fill the post.

Duncan, who hails from a long line of local Democrats active in state and county politics, said he would run as a Republican.

No Democratic names have surfaced as possible challengers for the open seat.

Medical matters: Some Washington Republicans stiff-armed their party's leadership and voted for a bipartisan measure last week that allows you to sue your HMO if it denies care.

But not Rep. Cliff Stearns, R-Ocala. Stearns stayed the course with GOP leaders and ended up on the losing side of this year's biggest health care vote.

Stearns, who represents a good part of Lake County, said he generally favors the idea of making HMOs accountable in court, but the Dingell-Norwood HMO bill would spawn too much ``unlimited litigation.''

He predicted that lawyers will get richer and medical premiums will climb with the bill that passed last week.

Lake County's other Washington lawmaker, U.S. Rep. Corrine Brown, said that going through a painful death of a close relative made last week's vote easy.

That tragic situation was made worse because of HMO restrictions the family ran into, Brown said.

``Sometimes it takes an experience like the one I just endured to realize how important a bill of rights can be,'' said Brown, a Jacksonville Democrat who represents east Lake County. ``This bill makes the HMO accountable.''